A group of experienced Financial Planners and financial professionals has today launched a new business which will help advisers and planners boost their business in the Auto Enrolment pensions market.
The business, the Auto Enrolment Advisory Group, will provide an Auto Enrolment compliance solution to advisers and planners and has been set up by planners Chris Daems, Matt Walne, Ian Highton and social media expert Bridget Greenwood.
Financial Planner Chris Daems said: "One of the largest misconceptions about Auto Enrolment is that it's all about pensions. It's actually far more about systems and project management. "
"While financial advisers and planners are fantastic at building relationships and using their technical expertise to help develop solutions for their clients, the feedback we have received is that auto enrolment requires a whole new set of processes and systems to ensure the adviser can help both their corporate and business owner clients with this rigorous new legislation."
He added that many advisers struggle with knowing how to profitably deal with Auto Enrolment. Over the next 10 months firms with 62-799 employees will have reached their Auto Enrolment staging date, highlighting what he called a "very small window of opportunity for advisers." He estimated it would take on average a minimum of six months from initial agreement to ensuring a firm is compliant.
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The group has used its founders' experience to build a "process driven" proposition which it believes will help planners take advantage of the growth in the auto enrolment market over the next few years.
It says competitors are not other advisers but employee benefit consultants.
The solution developed by the Auto Enrolment Advisory Group will also help planners provides a division between their existing services and the new service designed to support the auto enrolment compliance process for advisers' corporate clients.
Joint group founder Matthew Walne said the group was a commercial venture designed to help planners access the Auto Enrolment market profitably and would charge for its services.
The group will provide adviser firms with an outline of what it thinks think they should be charging for their services. The cost of an initial report is expected to be about £3,000. The group then charges £1,500 to do the the work on adviser's behalf. The group will not provide advice on the the suitability of a particular new scheme as it is not getting involved in the regulated side.
Asked about the reason for setting up the group now, Mr Walne said: "We have realised that there is little or no support to help financial advisers be in a position to have the knowledge and ability and be confident talking to their clients and introducers about the intricacies of Auto Enrolment.
"Most seem to have in their mind 'what pension scheme do I need to choose?' but actually it's more about the systems and processes needed for an employer to remain compliant with The Pensions Regulator. Our aim is to give the smaller IFA firm a larger share of the Auto Enrolment market than would otherwise have been possible. We also want IFAs to protect their own client bank and relationships and to build on that.
The service will include report writing and payroll data cleansing and has teamed up with Steve Bee and Jargon Free Benefits to provide further admin and technical support.
The Auto Enrolment Advisory Group has already had contact with over 100 advisers firms and says many have registered at its website www.aeadvice.co.uk